The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald

Author:Betty MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: gwbooks

10

The Lure of the Tropics

I think seed catalogues are the most exciting things there are. And I think seed companies are the most generous, for they never question your motives when you write for their catalogues. By looking at the return address in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope they could have seen that I lived in the vicinity of the "most westerly tip of the United States," and yet they never hedged about sending me gorgeously illustrated catalogues mostly devoted to tropical plants with thrilling pictures of orange trees in full fruit and bloom, lemon trees, magnolias, avocados, peppers and other brilliantly colored warm-sounding names like Canna, Iberian Fire Lily, Mexican Flame Flower, African Daisy. On gray soggy November days I pored over last year's catalogues, and after an hour or two I could look out at the squishy landscape without shivering, for I could almost hear the hum of bees, feel the summer heat and see the yard wallowing in tropical glory.

When the new catalogues came in the spring I devoured them and with pencil and paper made lists, which usually totaled around $279 and had to be slashed and slashed. At last I ordered my seeds and spent days rigid with expectancy. I always bought against my better judgment some of the flame-fire-veldt type of plants from a little known semitropical seed company, which invariably substituted Nasturtiums for Belgian Congo Moon Glow Blooms ("often attaining a size of two feet in diameter")—California Poppies for East Indian Pompoms and never put in more than three seeds to a package. They were not very honest, but I could warm my hands over the pictures in their catalogues.

Bob, who had already ordered and received all of his seeds weeks before from a well-known local firm, listened resignedly to my feverish accounts of the front yard exploding with giant Cannas, the house crawling with Flame Flowers, gourds and monstrous Congo Roses, the fences completely hidden by "Unusual Annuals"; then dug a trench the full length of the vegetable garden, filled it with chicken manure, rich brown earth and sweet peas. I saw defeat coming as relentlessly as old age.

The second spring Bob made me a coldframe all my own for my tropical galaxy of bloom. It was not exactly a spontaneous idea on Bob's part, and he was pretty tightlipped as he grimly slammed the nails home, mumbling about the drop-of-water-on-stone technique; but it was a beauty, facing south, with three sections, sashes on hinges and little arms to brace the sashes when I wanted to lift them. When it was finished all I had to do was to wait for my seeds to come and for the earth to take a slight detour from its ordinary whirl on its axis, and success would be mine.

Meanwhile it was time to work on the vegetable garden. As we plowed and harrowed and dragged the feathery loam, I thought of New England people and of how they have to build their soil out of humus and sweat, and it made me feel guilty.

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